Contest: Do you know about these?
We have a new favorite toy in our house. Every child in my house (including me) loves these new fangled connecting things!
They are colorful. They are flexible. They are shaped like a hexagon. They can be connected to make 2D toys.
Like aliens
or turned into crowns and connected in the back
They can be connected to make 3D toys.
Like Dragonflies
They are Puzzibits!
While the box they come in is a great way for storing them, our large Organizer bag is doing great with the hundreds of pieces we have so far. We even store some of the toys we’ve made in the bag too. So far we have collected two small 150 piece sets, two medium 300 piece set.
They interconnect in a weave fashion, over and under, making all kinds of neat-o, nifty things to play with.
Seriously, any toy that everyone of my children can enjoy playing with together, you know, all at the same time for hours is a great toy. In all honesty, Bairno just enjoys holding them and playing with the creations his sisters make for him. And while CowBoy does struggle a bit with connecting them in more than a straight line, he is doing quite well with learning how. As a matter of fact, while I am typing this he is playing with them and just showed me that not only has he mastered connecting them in shapes, but has followed the pattern in the included pattern book for part of a bug wing. Bugs! The boxes the Puzzibits come in say for ages 6+. I originally bought some for our six year old, Princerella, to have around and use for some of her Occupational Therapy. She is doing really well with learning how, they are just still a bit hard for her weak dexterity. Now, they children can’t get enough of playing with these neat toys.
It gets real hot here in the south in the summer. It gets up over a hundred degrees. It gets up to 110 degrees on the hottest days. Internet, I do not go out in heat like that. Call me a wuss if you will, but I don’t. I also don’t make my children go out in that heat either. Some time in the sun is good. Some time in the water in the sun is good, but not in that heat. Not in the south. Not with the humidity that we have that gets added to that heat. It ain’t no dry heat around here, Baby.
When I bought these I was thinking about (read: making a list of summer time toys) that we can play with inside that is outside our regular play and toy box ideas. I’m, shall we say, collecting things for us to do during those worst part of the day heat hours. Which is usually around noon to three in the afternoon. There will be Netflix for rainy days as well.
I need a little help with my summer time list of fun indoor (but not limited to indoor) things we can do. But I would never ask for help without offering something in return. I have a little contest/drawing in mind.
Here are the rules:
- The contest begins Monday morning as soon as this posts and ends Friday evening at 5:00pm.
- You must leave me a comment on this post telling me your favorite summer time indoor fun thing to do, game, toy, et cetera.
- One entry per person, but you can leave multiple suggestions or ideas.
- It must not be expensive (read: free to $15.00 tops for all of us to do; we are a family of eight remember.
- Take a picture of your family/children playing the game, or with the toy, or something symbolic of that favorite thing and send it to me in an email (smocklady [ at ] thesmocklady [ dot ] com) to add to my (you can hide or disguise your faces) flickr set for us all to do. I am going to put the winner’s picture up on the blog so everyone can learn something new to do too.
- If you have a blog or flickr account please consider posting about the contest with a link back here. Maybe even do your own little post about your favorite low-cost summer time game or activity and link back here to share the contest love with all your readers.
- The winner will be chosen via a random drawing and be announced next Monday, May 19th.
What will you win?
Your very own set of Puzzibits! Woot! I have here in my hot little hands (Okay, high up on the bookshelf because my darlings are dying to go on a safari) one brand new 450 piece set of Puzzibits. Safari edition.
p.s.
this is not a paid review or advertisement – we just love them and want you to love them too! I’ve added many of the Puzzibit products to our aStore. Purchasing items through our link will help promote more, bigger, and better contests and giveaways. That’s how I paid for this one (and a some school books) – through ads and associate payouts.
those look awesome!
OH! How about making edible playdoh?! You can make it together, play with it, then eat it!! How fun! There are tons of recipes on the internet!
This is really cheap and easy to do. Buy a roll of duct tape and totally tape up one kid. Make sure you leave the mouth and nose free though so they can breathe.
Then have all the other kids try to untape them. Of course, they cannot use anything sharp to do it. Or, for more fun, tape up ALL the kids at once. Tape them together even.
That’ll keep them busy!
Karen (Pediascribe)s last blog post..THE CAT MUST EARN HIS KEEP
MMM – a pic of your girls eating playdough (make some paper glasses for privacy)
KP – hardy har har har
Now I know it’s only Tuesday, but it is down to just you guys so far, but neither of you put up a picture for me. See Rule #5.
I finally got some ideas!
1. Make 2 teams and give each a roll of toilet paper and some tape. See which team can make the best wedding dress (or whatever else) out of tp. Yes, it’s an old bridal shower game, but I think it has potential.
2. Save old cardboard boxes, paper towel and tp rolls. Make 2 teams and see who can make the tallest or strongest tower. For the strongest tower, see how many books you can stack on top before it falls down.
3. The good old fashioned scavenger hunt. It works inside or out, and give bonus points for all those things you’ve been looking for around the house.
I don’t think I can give you a picture of any of these because Susan is still too young to enjoy them. Wait, I have an idea…
MKs last blog post..The Susan
they look so neat and I just saw them at Target today and we are doing our best to come up with some of our favorite ideas for you…stay tuned :)
another Lori (lorimo)s last blog post..Nature’s Beauty and Fragility
Those are really neat!
Our favorite thing at the present is Lego sets. My boys spend hours playing with them. Unfortunately they aren’t cheap. :-(
Things we have done in the past- built forts with blankets, etc., made a “store” using empty food containers (ok, that was primarily for math practice but they liked it), and made things with bakeable clay. Or you could skip the oven and do air-hardening clay. Just some ideas for you. Board games are touch and go, fun for awhile but not exciting enough for really small ones.
We like to play dominoes (http://www.domino-games.com/domino-rules/chickenfoot-rules.html). I guess if the game didn’t work out you could let the kids set the dominoes up to knock over. :-)
Ok, fine. I’ll play for real. AND I included pictures!
http://www.pediascribe.com/20080515/summer-activity-idea-for-the-smocklady/
Is it ok if I blogged it instead of emailing the pictures to you? I know, I’m such a rebel.
Karen (Pediascribe)s last blog post..SUMMER ACTIVITY IDEA FOR THE SMOCKLADY
KP – so far yo are the only one including pictures. hmmm.
I just ordered 6 games on Amazon dot com for $28.40! Wantnot dot net gave us a heads up on huge game savings!! I also happened to get free shipping on my order!
I haven’t included a pic since we haven’t made the play-doh yet…..